Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving and being Thankful.

I passed a church with a sign saying something

regarding being thankful for something God is

working on right now, which we

don't even know about.

Let's give thanks.

Thank you God, for bringing Jeremy through his

disc replacement surgery.

And thank you for beginning new life, which

will make this couple a family.

Thank you for the opportunity to spend time with

grandchildren that live far away.

Thank you for family.

Thank you for good health care and all those

medical people that helped my sister fight breast cancer.

And we are so thankful, that we have Ashley & Daniela here in the U.S.

with us the past six months.

The list goes on and on.

Thank you for keeping Rick safe in Afghanistan.

Thank you for the safe birth of the two most recent

additions to our family.

Lately, I've felt that my cup is running over with all the blessings I've received.

And yet I know your hand is working and there are more

blessings headed our way.

God is so Good!

Thank you!

If you feel blessed this holiday season and have much to

be thankful for.....go out of your way

to bless someone else.

Two Celebrations!

We celebrated Daniela's first birthday on her real birthday

with an ice cream cake from DQ.

She loved it!!!

And then we celebrated again on Thanksgiving with the

extended family and a chocolate cake.

Here I am, signing Happy Birthday as the cake starts to slide off

the plastic base. 

Little ones just don't get any cuter than this!

She is such a blessing.

I love having her stay with us while

her Mom goes to back to college.

Two celebrations - one beautiful  "1 Year Old".

Bounce with us

On Wednesday, (Daniela's birthday) we went to Bounce University.

What a great time.  Everyone loved the slides.

Gramie LaLa (Me) & Ava went down holding hands.

It's really hard to get a good shot, it seems like both

my daughter & I kept cutting peoples heads off or

getting them in a heap at the end of the slide.

Michael looking like he's screaming, bur he really loved it.

Ava playing T-Ball.

Daniela, trying to catch the ball, which is floating on air.

And down the kiddie size slide she goes.

We had a great time.  The parents and the kids both

had a work out.

Before my grandchildren leave to go back to Maine,

we are also going to go to Cast Away Cafe.

A Flock of Turkeys

If you came over to my place right now, that's what you'd see...

A whole flock of turkeys.

These gobblers will be strutting around the holiday table

on Thursday.

                                   

May your stuffing be tasty

May your turkey plump,

May your potatoes and gravy

Have nary a lump.

May your yams be delicious
And your pies take the prize,

And may your Thanksgiving dinner

Stay off your thighs!

Knock Knock. Who's there? Aida. Aida who?

Aida lot more than I should have!

Aren't they just the cutest little turkeys?

 

What do you get when you cross a turkey
with an octopus?

Lots of drumsticks for Thanksgiving dinner

How do you make a turkey float?

Get two scoops of ice cream,
add some root beer and a turkey.

What do hippies put on their Thanksgiving turkey?

Groovy

*The directions for these great birds are on  Family Fun's website.

Frankenbooth Continued.....

When our children were younger they called Frankenmuth "Frankenbooth".  It is so ingrained in my brain I sometimes have to seriously think which one is the correct pronunciation.  Should I admit those things?Maybe not, but it's the truth.



The Gingerbread House



A candy house - but Mom won't let me have sugar.

It was so much fun taking Ashely & Daniela with us this year.  You see the store and all that's in it through different eyes, when you look through the eyes of a child.  You can see the light reflection of this silver ball on Daniela's face.  She would have stayed there infinitely if we would have let her.


The very first ornament she checked out.

 

She's just my size



Daniela was gabby and happy the whole afternoon.  There was so much to see and do. 

We make a trip every year and are very likely to do so in the future.

And yes, because I know you are dying to know...we did go to the General Store to buy old fashioned candy out of the wooden barrels.

Frankenmuth

Our annual trip to Bronners, the World's largest Christmas store.

As you can see Gus doesn't dress-up for these occasions.

Ugh!

An interesting picture....very colorful and you can see reflections of other displays.

These are Russian nesting dolls.

Ashley bought Daniela a Christmas stocking and had her name

embroidered on it for her.

They do it while you shop and no additional cost.

What a deal.

Gramie looks a little too happy.

We were finished shopping - saved %15 of our bill.

We were also on our way to Bavarian Inn for dinner.

Three of my favorite pictures need to uploaded to Kodak before

I can put them on here.  

Makes me want to swear!

Maybe tomorrow ..... today it's back to the real world

where I work and still have Thanksgiving to get ready for.

We have a Secret.....

A secret ......................something unrevealed; mystery

News.......................a report of a recent event.

Update...............................to bring up to current date.

Practise............................................repeating an exercise.

 "Practice Makes Perfect" (the more you practice, the better you will become... )

 

 Yes...............................someone is walking.

And everyone is very excited about it.............including her.

Daniela - 11 1/2 months

Her record for consecutive steps is 21!



Change Your Game

I've started attending a new church.

The main church is in Plymouth, Michigan, but this satellite opened

about the time my grand babies started arriving and I was out of town.

 I jumped in on week six and have been attending since.

The series they are teaching on is "Change Your Game".

Last week the game was Jenga - Balance is the key!

The Pastor talked about doing all the work, but without Faith you'll get no where.

Having tons of faith, but doing none of the work, will also get you no where.

You must have balance.

Joyce Meyer has this saying "Do what you can do, God will do the rest".

Meet Brad Powell the pastor.

Next month we will be going to the Christmas performance.

I have heard that they put on a more elaborate production than you'll see at the Fox Theatre.

Ashley's employers bought tickets and invited us to enjoy the evening with them.

The anticipation is growing by the day.

Off to church.

The Game is Life.  How will you play?

Play Date With Rosie

Meet Rosie - She's Daniela's play date friend.

Her Nonee (Grandma) cares for her while her parents work, so the two

Gramies visit while the little ones play.

Rosie is 9 months older than Daniela, she has tons of curly hair

and a whole mouth full of teeth. 

Rosie climbed up on her toy bench and padded the seat beside her

so I'd put Daniela up there with her.

I had to run and get the camera it was so cute.

After a few shots I put the camera down, but Rosie kept pointing to it.

She loves having her picture taken.

We took a long walk around their farm and saw the horses, a cow and a goat.

It was a beautiful fall day.  Rosie fell asleep on the long walk.

Although Daniela plays with Genevieve all day twice a week, it's

good to have more than one friend. 

We've also started having play dates with Gavin and his Grandma who live next door.

Out of Control

Seriously, everyone has a favorites tab and how many listings does the average person have?  I hate to admit it, but I think mine is out of control.  At last count I have 103 favorite sites listed.  Are they a-l-l really favorites you ask?  No not really, some are for convenience sake and the rest are sites I've come across that I want to check out further.

Here's a sample of the last ten I added to the f-tab.

Thanksgiving Crafts:Tiny Toms/Thanksgiving Turkey Craft Ideas/Family Fun

Read Aloud America Book List

Ten Ways to Give Your Old Sweaters New Life

Top Secret Recipes from Todd Wilbur/Restaurant Recipes and Name Brand Recipes

Wee Folk and Critters/Wee Folk Art

Brain Games & Brain Training - Lumosity
 
Top Toy Picks   (By Ages)

Nova Natural Toys & Crafts

Abundant Food Savings

Baby Finger Foods

How many are on your f-tab?  Leave a comment or link to your blog where you post your last 10 favorites.
I will be working on whittling mine down a bit.

Still here

Working feverishly at getting all the pictures uploaded to Kodak and ordering while they still have their 10 cent deal.  It's been months since I ordered so there's a ton of work involved.

Also creating this years Christmas cards.  It has been very frustrating, because most of the cards I like have spots for 1-3 pictures.  Ugh!  I need four slots minimum.   If I was rich, I'd make mini albums for everyone, you know how I LOVE pictures.

Today Daniela & I are going to a friend's house to play.  If I remember to take the camera, we may have some pictures to share of our fun day.

Her Favorite Things

 Babies are so amazing; they grow and change daily.

Their likes and dislikes change often.

This Beanie Baby ostrich "Ollie" (Gramie's name for him) is Daniela
favorite new buddy to drag everywhere with her.

She still loves Danan and Danan loves her.

When the dog goes out in the morning to go potty,

Daniela knows how to stick her hand in the bag and

and pull out a chicken strip for the dog's treat when she comes back in.

She holds it tightly in her hand until Danan grabs the other end.

Then Daniela & I shout Yeah! and clap for the "good doggie".

Danan frequently visits Daniela's room and often lays next

to the rocker while I rock Daniela to sleep.

Her love of books only increases by the day.

She now babbles as she looks at the pictures.

It's so cute.

Oh! My! Does she ever love this horse.

Daniela can get off from it by herself now and I'm sure

it won't be long before she get herself on it too.

One day this week I was walking around the house trying to direct her to a specific

place to play and she practically drug me to the horse.

When this girl wants to ride, she really wants to ride.

She's bouncing and jumping on this pony by herself now.

You can see her little toes pushing her up and down.

She has learned to sign "more".

She uses this to get me to repeat "Itsy Bitsy Spider" a thousand times.

I don't even start unless I want to sing it a bunch of times.

This little girl is taking a few steps here and there.

She will stand and clap or dance without holding on to anything.

Daniela has two teeth on the bottom and two through on the top.

The top two are not next to each other, so they look a little silly,

but four more are trying to poke through, she's going to have a whole mouthful before the year ends.

Treasure Hunts

My oldest two grandchildren love treasure hunts.  On my most recent visit we had the help of this book and I would highly recommend it.  It gave me great new ideas and variations of the basic treasure hunt.

Book Description:


The world's first set of ready-to-go treasure hunts. Just tear out the pre-printed, perforated clues and hide them around your house. (On the back of each clue you'll find instructions for exactly where it goes.) Hand the first clue to your hunters and get out of the way - your house is now a treasure island!

If my memory serves me correctly (the book remained with the kids) there were 12 treasure hunts in the book.   There's a pocket in the book to save your clues for future hunts.  Some of the new ones we tried were the hunt by color cards and picture cards, whereas previously we'd always used clues.

Here's a favorite one we will surely repeat.  It started with handing the children a pillow off from a bed.  They were to return it to its proper place and find something there that was out of place and then return it, until they reached the price.  When Ava found a large green pepper in her clothes closet, she ran to the fridge and shrieked when she opened the door.  "Michael, come and see there's pajamas in here".  She was so excited.

These pictures were from our first hunt, before the book arrived and we started trying all the new variations.


The clue was hidden in the bike wheel.



The Clue - something that makes noise when the wind blows.

Maybe, it's in this toolbox.

The prize - New movies!

It's fun, it educational and it gives them something to look forward to.  A treasure hunt could even be a reward for a good day at school or making their bed all week.  Use your imagination.

The book also gives you ideas for prizes.  New toys, a plate of cookies, a privilege (like staying up late) or a family outing (trip to the museum), use your imagination. 

Happy treasure hunting everyone.